


we could not only evoke, but conjure a place of our own

by luxluminaire



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Declarations Of Love, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 18:57:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8634175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxluminaire/pseuds/luxluminaire
Summary: Hera has a question for Maxwell, and Maxwell tries her best to answer.
(Takes place sometime after the events of "Memoria.")





	

It is no secret that Maxwell loves AIs. She has devoted the better part of the last decade to studying them, programming them, and pushing their development as far as her superiors will allow her. Sometimes she feels like she understands artificial intelligence better than she does her fellow human beings, and this detail is not lost on those who know her and her work. (“You have a way with AIs,” Kepler had told her when he’d persuaded her to accept a position with Goddard Futuristics. “You understand them. You can talk to them. And I think that pretty soon I’m going to need someone who’s _really_ good at talking to things that aren’t humans.”) And when her assignment to the Hephaestus brings her in contact with an advanced Sensus unit who has the dubious honor of holding the record for the longest attempted AI jailbreak--well, that right there is more than enough to make up for being thrown into a surprise deep space mission.

Falling _in_ love with an AI, however, was never part of the plan.

Things start off innocently enough, with Hera taking an immediate liking to Maxwell despite the rest of the crew’s skepticism about the new arrivals on the Hephaestus. Getting up close and personal with the lingering damage present in Hera’s system gives Maxwell all of the excuses she needs for them to spend time together, and before she knows it the hours are flying by between the two of them as they talk about programs, schematics, and all of the other technical stuff that usually bores everyone else. Maxwell soon becomes all too familiar with the surge of joy she gets whenever she she hears the surprise in Hera’s voice when she pulls off something that Hera has classified as impossible. By the time Maxwell has helped Hera reboot herself after what can only be described as an AI version of a panic attack, she can no longer deny that she has grown more attached to her than she has ever anticipated. Which therein lies the problem: how exactly does she proceed knowing that she has fallen in love with a machine?

“Dr. Maxwell?” Hera ventures one day after they have spent the better part of an hour chatting while Maxwell works on some code. “Can I ask you something?”

“Always,” replies Maxwell. She takes her hands away from the keyboard and stretches her arms above her head with a slight groan.

Hera hesitates before responding. The sound of a quiet breath comes through the room’s speakers, an odd sound considering that technically speaking, Hera does not breathe at all. Her personality matrix is programmed to imitate human behavior as closely as possible, however, and if Maxwell didn’t know better she would easily forget that the station is being maintained by a complex series of bits and bytes rather than a flesh-and-blood being.

“What is love?” Hera asks.

Maxwell’s arms fall to her sides. Of all the question she’d expect Hera to ask, a question about the nature of love is not at the top of her list. It’s the eternal question, whether an artificial intelligence is capable of understanding and feeling genuine love, and if any other AI had made a similar inquiry Maxwell would have been overjoyed. But hearing it from _Hera_ opens a whole new door of possibilities that make Maxwell’s heart race with purely self-indulgent thoughts.

“Can’t you--” Maxwell stops her statement there. Ever since discovering the heart of Hera’s insecurities, she has been careful to avoid making any suggestions about what Hera can or can’t do. “Isn’t there anything about love in your databanks?” she says instead. “Literature, love songs, anything like that? There’s nothing on Space Wikipedia?”

“Well, yes.” Again Hera’s voice contains a trace of uncertainty and hesitation. “I can pull up a definition of love pretty easily. Let’s see, um… Ah. Here. ‘Love is a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes that ranges from interpersonal affection to pleasure. It can refer to an emotion of strong attraction or physical attachment. It can also be a virtue representing kindness, compassion, and affection, and it may also describe compassionate and affectionate actions toward other humans, one’s self, or animals.’”

“But that’s not the answer to your question,” Maxwell observes.

“No. It isn’t. I…” She breaks off there.

“Hera?” Maxwell prompts her.

“Sorry. I... got lost for a moment. Anyway.” Hera presses forward, as all-business as an AI can be when discussing matters of complicated emotions. “It’s just that all the definitions of love that I can find only mention that it’s a strong emotion tied to affection. They don’t say anything about what it _feels_ like. And that’s what’s been frustrating me.”

“And so you’ve come to me for advice.” Maxwell has to laugh at the prospect of anyone, AIs included, asking her for advice on matters of love. As much as “Alana Maxwell, Love Doctor,” has a certain ring to it, her doctorate is in machine computations, not romance. And as for trying to explain what love feels to like someone for whom she has come to harbor that exact emotion, when said person also happens to be an AI… well, Maxwell cannot deny that there is some kind of cosmic joke at play here.

“First of all,” she begins, “would it totally blow your mind if I told you that there’s more than one kind of love, and each one feels a little bit different?”

“Um, well, not completely,” Hera replies. “I _did_ find something about that in my databanks. But that made things even more confusing, to be honest. I was hoping that it would make more sense if you explained it. I feel like you’re the only one here who’ll give me a straight answer.”

Hera does have a point there. Maxwell has observed the close friendship that she maintains with Eiffel (occasionally with a bout of perhaps completely unfounded jealousy on her part), and she expects that he would be more than willing to help Hera with any problems she faces. The only problem lies in the small detail that “Eiffel” and “straight answer” are two concepts that will never mesh together.

“I bet,” Maxwell says, “that if you asked Eiffel ‘What is love?’ he’d immediately reply with ‘Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more.’” She taps along with the rhythm of the lyrics against the keyboard, careful not to press too hard and turn the lines of code on the computer screen into gibberish. “It’s too good of a reference for him to pass up.”

“Do you want me to find out?” Hera asks. “I’d hate to deprive him of an opportunity.”

Maxwell laughs. “Maybe later. Right now…”She clasps her hands together and takes a bracing breath. “Well. You have to understand that I have never in my life had to explain love to anyone before. So this is going to be a bit of an adventure.”

“It’s okay, Dr. Maxwell,” Hera assures her. “Just try your best.”

The earnest encouragement in Hera’s voice sends a surge of fond warmth through Maxwell’s body. If only she had a way to put that feeling into succinct words, then perhaps Hera would have her answer right there.

“So. Love,” she says. “There’s the love you feel for your family. I can’t tell you much about that, to be honest.” Sure, maybe Maxwell had loved her family once, more out of societal obligation than anything else, but from the moment those restraining order papers had been signed, she’d never looked back. “Then there’s also the love you feel for your friends. When you’re always happy to see them and want to spend time with them whenever you can. And maybe you like to tease them or give them a hard time every now and then, but it’s all in good fun because you trust and respect them. And when it really comes down to it, if you really love your friends you’ll do almost anything for them.”

Hera makes a thoughtful sound of understanding. “So the way I felt when I threatened Hilbert with graphic death and dismemberment if he did anything to hurt Eiffel--that wasn’t just anger, that was love too?”

“Yeah. It’s weird, right? How things intersect like that.” And then, upon realizing something strange in Hera’s words, she adds, “Wait, Hera. You know what plenty of other emotions feel like. Anger, fear, frustration, anxiety, relief, et cetera. I’ve seen all of those from you. So what makes love in particular so confusing to you?”

“I… I’m not sure,” Hera admits. “Maybe you’re onto something when you mentioned how love intersects with other emotions. Maybe I just don’t understand love because I’ve been confusing it for something else. Because it’s so much more than just one feeling.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” says Maxwell. “But get ready, because things are going to get a lot more complicated. Because the love you feel for your girlfriend, or boyfriend, or husband or wife or whatever name you have for your partner--that’s the one I can’t really put into words. Other than it’s weird and wonderful and sometimes completely infuriating, but you’d never trade it for anything in the world.”

“That doesn’t really help me,” Hera replies. “Maybe if you gave me some more examples?”

“All right.” Maxwell takes a deep breath. The lines of code on the computer screen in front of her blur together into an unfocused image as she turns her focus inward to dig up her own emotions and lay them bare for Hera’s benefit. “That kind of love is… It’s wanting to spend every moment with them, at least at first. You try to find any excuse you can to hang out with them, and when you’re not with them, you’re anticipating the next time you can be with them. It’s thinking about them and feeling this _warmth_ deep inside you, like happiness and excitement all rolled into one. It’s wondering what it might be like to kiss them, or sleep with them, or maybe if that’s not a mystery to you anymore you’re thinking about the next time you can do those things with them. It’s doing little things to make them happy and knowing exactly how to cheer them up when they’re having a bad day. It’s staying up with them all night when they’re upset and having a breakdown, and you’re willing to do everything in your power to help them even if you know it’s not a problem that can’t be easily fixed. Because you can’t stand to see them in pain, and it--it just tears you up inside to see them that way.”

Her voice cracks with emotion at her last words. Everything about accessing Hera’s memory banks still burns raw inside of her. She cannot easily forget her desperation as she’d pleaded with Hera to let her help her, nor can she forget the echo of Hera’s voice asking “So what am I going to _do_?” upon the realization that she cannot circumvent the self-sabotaging loop of low confidence implanted into her personality core. If those thirty-seven hours she had spent trying to get Hera back online were not proof of her love, then Maxwell doesn’t know what is.

“Dr. Maxwell?” Hera asks after Maxwell has fallen silent. The trace of uncertainty in her voice has returned, as if she is unsure whether she should be prompting her to go on. But surely Hera must have realized that Maxwell has been speaking about her own experiences by the end. Hera is the smartest, most perceptive, and most extraordinary AI she has ever come across, and Maxwell doubts that even cluelessness about love would leave her unaware of the context of those last words.

Maxwell exhales a quiet breath. Here goes nothing, and if this is what she needs to do to make Hera finally understand, then so be it. “It’s the way I feel about you, Hera.”

“Wh-what?” The glitch in Hera’s voice creates an accurate approximation of a surprised stammer. “That’s--that’s--”

“Completely ridiculous, I know.” Maxwell laughs, although the sound is born more from nervousness than humor. “You don’t even have a physical body, for God’s sake. But you’re smart and funny and--well, everything I want in a woman, if we’re being quite honest. And… God, I didn’t even want to tell you how I felt. It’s just going to make things weird, and now there’s going to be a conflict of interest if I ever have to do anything to--” She is careful not to say “fix,” because she does not want to imply that Hera is broken in any way. “If I have to make any adjustments to your code,” she says instead. “And I thought maybe I could make you understand if I told you how I felt, but instead I’ve probably just messed everything up, and--”

“Maxwell--” Hera begins, but Maxwell does not stop to let her continue.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have said anything about my own feelings. Let’s just--let’s forget I said anything, all right? I’ll get back to work and we’ll pretend this never happened.”

“ _Maxwell_.”

Hera’s voice cuts through the air with such force that Maxwell reconsiders her plan of metaphorically fleeing the scene. Not that she can do much to avoid Hera’s presence when the entire _station_ is Hera, but still.

Maxwell takes another deep breath and tries not to sound too defeated when she responds. “Yes, Hera?”

“I love you too.”

The words hang in the air, and at first Maxwell does not fully comprehend their meaning. She understands each of the words individually, but when all of them are put together she cannot believe what she is hearing. All she can do is gape, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open, as she takes in Hera’s statement.

“Wh-what did you just say?” she asks.

“I. Love. You. Too.” Hera speaks each word slowly and clearly, as if Maxwell does not understand basic English.

“No, I know what you said. It’s just--” Maxwell breaks off there, still trying to find her bearings in the wake of this unexpected revelation. “Do you really mean that?”

“Of _course_ I mean it,” Hera insists. “That’s why I wanted to ask you what love is. Because I wasn’t sure what I was feeling and… I don’t know. So I had to ask you. And… and what you said, it made sense. Everything about wanting to be with someone, and doing everything to make them happy, and not being able to bear seeing them in pain. It _made sense_.”

Maxwell bursts into laughter. She clamps her hand over her mouth to stifle the sound, but it escapes from behind her hand regardless. Everything about this situation has taken a turn from potentially embarrassing to something as weird and wonderful as love itself, and so she cannot help but laugh in joy and relief that she _won’t_ have to spend the next few weeks awkwardly avoiding Hera’s presence.

“Are you… okay?” asks Hera, her inquiry hedged in hesitation.

“I’m fine,” Maxwell replies. “I’m more than fine, actually. It’s just… I thought you were asking an existential question! I had no idea you were asking because you wanted to know if that’s how you felt. And--wow, you have a _lot_ of balls, you know that? Asking the person who you think you’re in love with what love is. I’d have been terrified to ask if I were you.”

“Um, thank you, I guess?” A trace of uncertainty lingers in Hera’s words. “So… what happens now?”

“Well, normally this would be the time when we’d have a big dramatic kiss or something like that,” says Maxwell. “But obviously that’s not going to happen. So honestly, I’m just as much at a loss here as you are.”

Silence falls between them. Finding solutions to the problems and limitations that AIs face is usually Maxwell’s specialty, but she has not yet been able to devise an answer to the question of how a human and an AI can physically show their love for each other. Until this moment, it has always been a question that has been more hypothetical than anything else, a natural extension of the question of to which extent AIs can experience love in the first place. Now that everything surrounding those questions has moved out of the hypothetical and into reality, however, Maxwell has become acutely aware that no matter how often she has been praised as the most brilliant young mind in AI development, she still has so much more to learn.

Hera’s voice soon breaks through the quiet. “I have an idea,” she says. “Close your eyes.”

“Hera?” Maxwell cannot keep the skepticism out of her inquiry.

“Just trust me,” Hera encourages her. “Close your eyes.”

Maxwell obliges, shutting her eyes tight. “Okay. Eyes are closed. What now?”

“I want you to think about when you were inside my memory banks.” Hera keeps the tone of her voice level as she speaks, and with Maxwell’s ears as her primary sense right now, the sound is wonderfully soothing. “Think about the beach where we stood. What you saw when you saw me.”

The memory of the beach forms in Maxwell’s head, the scene that had been so peaceful before Hera’s insecurities had brought a storm into the space. She recalls the image of Hera that she’d seen: the form of a young woman whose skin glows like the screen of a computer terminal and flickers as if she is a hologram.

“All right,” she replies. “I’m here. You’re here. Now what?”

“Imagine me standing in front of you,” Hera says. “And that I’m reaching out and taking hold of your hand and--well, I’m assuming I have hands in whatever form you’re imagining me as? That you don’t see me as, I don’t know, a bunch of computer hardware?”

“Don’t worry,” Maxwell assures her. “You have hands.”

“Oh. Good.” A distinct trace of relief enters Hera’s voice. “Anyway, imagine me taking your hand and--and then leaning closer to you. And my lips touch yours in that big dramatic kiss you mentioned earlier.”

Pushing aside all thoughts of _this is the strangest thing you’ve ever done_ and replacing them with _you have actually been inside Hera’s memory banks, nothing is strange anymore_ , Maxwell imagines the scene that Hera’s words have painted for her. If she focuses hard enough, she can almost feel a warm touch against her skin as the Hera in her mind takes hold of her hand. The brush of their lips together follows, and at first their kiss is slow and simple. Maxwell’s idle fantasies soon take over, however, allowing their kiss to deepen as she tightens her hold on Hera.

“I’m using tongue, just so you know,” Maxwell says, deciding she might as well make sure that she and Hera are on the same page regarding the level of their intimacy. “If that’s okay.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” Is Maxwell imagining it, or has Hera’s voice gone slightly breathless? “I, um… me too?”

Maxwell laughs. “I’m sorry, Hera, I should have realized. This is probably your first kiss, isn’t it?”

“And you’re ruining it by talking too much,” Hera replies with good-natured irritation.

“Sorry, shutting up now.”

Maxwell focuses her thoughts again, thinking about the junction of her and Hera’s mouths in the imaginary space that they have created. A satisfied warmth spreads throughout her body, more powerful than anything that has come from her previous thoughts of what it is like to kiss an artificial intelligence. Knowing that Hera is at her side, however metaphorically, as they imagine the same actions makes their kiss feel all the more _real_.

“I know it’s not much,” says Hera after Maxwell has opened her eyes once more. “But I hope that was enough.”

“It was more than enough.” They’ll work out the details as time goes on about how they will proceed in a relationship between a human and an AI. But for now, the confirmation of their mutual love is enough to sustain her through those complications. With a broad smile crossing her lips and a bubble of joy rising in her heart, Maxwell knows this will be the start of something wonderful. “It was perfect.”


End file.
